Thoughtfulness & Austerity – Offspring of Śānti and Atharvā

Śānti, who is also known as Citti, gave Atharvā a son named Dadhyaṇca, who followed strict vows and is famous for wearing a horses head. Thus when thoughtfulness (citti) is primary (atharvā) we naturally minimalize our external affairs and become “thin” (dadhyaṇca).

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I won’t have a conclusive reply for you, Melissa, till I get to the section of Bhāgavata that discusses his story in detail. That’s in the Sixth section of Bhāgavata, and we are currently looking at the Fourth. I can study about one per year, so I guess I wont be able to conclusively answer you for two or three years. But my suspicion is that it was not a literal horses head, but a horse-head fabricated by yogic-mystic power expressly for the purpose of being worn by a sage. In fact, Vishnu is said to have later used the same horses head, so it certainly doesn’t seem to be the decapitated member of a regular horse.

Stay tuned, though. 😉 It will be fun to dive into the Sanskrit in Section Six and figure all this out.